| Popis: |
This chapter explores the construction, repetition and dissemination of idealized femininity in popular fairy tales and how, in contemporary visual re-workings, these conventions are being challenged. Philosopher Judith Butler’s theories of gender construction and performance underpin my analysis of how gender, as a series of acts and physical states, is constituted in fairy tales. The archetypal heroine of fairy-tale fame is constructed according to a perceived social consensus of ideal femininity—she must be pretty, pure, obedient, youthful and morally sound—a model repeated through a number of tales. The artworks analyzed in this chapter, by Cornelia Parker, Carrie Mae Weems and Gerard Rancinan, show how subversive repetition can serve to interrupt, challenge, transgress and even reverse conventional expectations of femininity. The application of Butler’s theories to the fairy-tale genre, and their visual reiterations, reveals the potential to change perceptions of gender through subversive repetition. It is this subversive repeat, a mis-repetition, which allows for the possibility of change that will be examined here. |
